Between the Lines
by pagerunner
Summary: In the mirror, within the hands of fate and time and shadow, one life ends. But time and consequence are broken in Night Vale, they always have been - and so it takes years for Cecil to fall. Backstory for Cecil as he appears in my Secrets arc, inspired heavily by "Cassette" (so spoilers through episode 33), and follows Things We Found in the Storm, although not chronologically.


_In the mirror, within the hands of fate and time and shadow, one life ends. Destiny has decreed it, and this boy's choices have sealed it. And so there, as the city always knew it would, one voice dies._

_But time and consequence are broken in Night Vale, they always have been - and so it takes years for Cecil to fall._

…

The first thing he learns when someone comes to wake him is that he's ill, or so it seems - terribly ill, and has been for a very long time.

That message, such as it is, gets relayed through complicated gestures made by faceless, shrouded figures. That may be the norm for nurses in Night Vale, but it's still a little hard to follow. If nothing else, though, Cecil _feels _ill, so he believes the verdict without question. He's weary, weak and chilled. His thoughts are oddly disconnected. It's difficult even to think of the last thing he did before he came…here. Wherever here is.

There might have been something to do with a tape recorder, and a flickering, indistinct shape. But It's out of reach now. Eventually he lets it go.

Eventually, he lets go of most things.

His only concrete worry is that he's _tried _to speak once or twice, probably to ask what's really happening, but somehow, he's lost his voice.

He coughs constantly. It's still difficult to breathe. His throat feels ravaged, bruised and sore, and he can't remember why. At least the figures looking after him do what they can for it, even murmuring occasionally in reassurance, although they don't form words any more frequently than he does. He can't see their faces, either. Still, he's too tired to worry about the details.

So he drinks a lot of the offered liquids, which burn before they soothe, and he stares hazily at the receding darkness above him, thinking of little, remembering less. There's only a few flickers of an idea, and they prompt him to make his one request. He forces his ravaged voice to plead that wherever this is, whatever this room may be, that there _not _be mirrors anywhere. None at all. Not one. Not anywhere in sight.

The figures study him silently, waiting for him to stop struggling with the words. It's quiet for a minute. Then one of them silently agrees.

With that accounted for, he's finally able to rest. In the reflection-less, window-less, anonymous room, Cecil sags back against the pillows in relief, and lets the world slip away again for a while.

…

_The figures standing around the subject murmur amongst themselves in the aftermath, watching him finally going still. _

_All of this was expected. All of this was planned. And now they all have work to do._

_One holds a bottle of clear but slightly glowing fluid. Another bears a needle. They're whispering in voices like cold winter winds, shaping designs and patterns in the air with bony fingers. They seem to agree upon something. The figure with the needle steps forward, and bends close to study the boy's face, the sprawl of his limbs._

_When it moves, the first invisible line of ink begins coiling around the boy's wrist, in a simple, enclosing circle. The second goes over his heart._

_The third touches the hollow of his throat._

…

Cecil doesn't remember much about his recovery, or how long it truly lasts, but eventually he wakes feeling refreshed again, and finally steadier. When he decides to croak a _hello _to the first figure he sees - this one probably a woman, swathed in lighter grays than the rest - he's startled at what happens.

His voice comes out steady, clear and deep.

Cecil's eyes widen. One hand goes to his throat. It's still tender to the touch, like it was bruised, and he still isn't sure why -

- _except for vague, shadowy impressions, something like a tendril or a grasping hand, but it's fleeting and gone before the woman watching him can begin to voice suspicions - _

- and so all he does is speak again, repeating "Hello?" in a tentative voice. It's pitched higher with the question, but it's in that richer, fuller tone. Still his voice. Still familiar.

But _changed_, unmistakably.

Hesitantly, he tries again, trying to get used to it.

"Good morning," he says. There's still a few familiar cracks, but that might just be from underuse this time. "I…don't think I ever asked your name?"

The woman gives him the impression of a smile. She passes him a slip of paper on which is written, in big, block letters:

_I AM YOUR GUARDIAN NOW. _

Cecil looks up quizzically. "Guardian? What about my-"

The thought breaks oddly, and he can't pick up the shrouded figure doesn't elaborate, either. She merely gestures to the paper. He turns it over.

_FOLLOW ME. _

He thinks about it. He isn't sure if there are many other options. This room is so _empty, _and it swims around him in disconcerting ways. There barely seem to even be walls; it just shades off into darkness. It's eerie and subtly wrong. He can't stay here. He also has the idea that he can't go back to the house - although he doesn't know why. There's a hole there in his memory, like a lost tooth, and he pokes at it, just the once.

Something terrifying howls back.

He withdraws. The woman waits.

Slowly, he gets up from the bed. His feet hold him up all right. He seems to be dressed. There's no mirror to check his reflection (_no, no, no mirrors, please-), _but he thinks he looks presentable enough. He _feels _presentable enough. Perhaps he's ready to go after all.

He clears his throat, preparing for another word or two, and says "All right." The voice sounds confident, almost to his surprise. Even adult.

(_But how did - what happened, what happened, what-)_

She stares. He stops. "All right," he murmurs once more.

His own voice echoes in his ears - impossibly, for it ought to be fading into the clouded distances here, but somehow it stays. That sound is what carries him through. He steps forward, and eventually, hegoes with her.

He never sees that room again.

…

_The figures surrounding the boy - who lies still on the floor, pale and breathless - radiate a buzzing sound of possible satisfaction. The first mark has taken hold. One gestures to another, who takes the boy's limp arm and holds it up, two fingers pressed over the absent pulse._

_He looks so very cold._

_They confer amongst themselves in silence, discussing possibilities and necessities both. Then they make another decision, and the beginnings of another mark._

_The tattoo needle sweeps across his arm, beginning to draw out a complex, maze-like curve. _

…

Cecil moves into an apartment not long after, one close to City Hall.

He gathers that it's not uncommon for wards of the Council - which officially he is now; he's seen the records - to stay in a place like this. It's spartan but comfortable, and well looked-after. He's given some paperwork about the sale of a house he doesn't remember very well, but it's unlivable now, apparently, so that's probably all right. At least he got some money from it, which is now in a trust to pay for college and maybe a home of his own someday. For now he's got a guardian, a room, and a small stipend, and he's supposed to finish school.

It all seems sensible enough. On the other hand, it also seems like it's been years since he's been in class, and he has no idea what to expect when he walks back through the doors.

So for a few days, he sticks close to home and doesn't speak to anyone. His guardian isn't much of a conversationalist, after all.

At least he feels comfortable enough in her company. He's got one crate of his old belongings - some clothes, mementos, a few things he hasn't even bothered to dig into - and it's enough to make the place feel familiar. Besides, he's got enough catch-up lessons to keep him busy. His guardian is excellent at geometry, not to mention Sumerian, biology, poetry, and town history. He never _hears _her lessons, exactly, but he's absorbing information as fast as she can feed it to him. Some mornings, he even wakes up remembering things he's _certain _he didn't read the day before. It's practically enough to make his brain itch.

What he's actually scratching at are his arms, like he's got wounds healing there that he can't see. Eventually his guardian puts a stop to that. She has, after all, an incredibly effective glare.

Most of the time, though, she's very kind. She's almost comforting. And he's happy here, he thinks. Almost.

In the moments when he's not, and when he's as alone as he's going to get, he lies awake in bed and quietly speaks to the empty air.

He's still not used to the voice: not how much it's changed, and not how much it still _hurts _sometimes,as if he's speaking past fingers clutched around his neck. Sometimes he still wakes feeling breathless, broken, and as if he's not quite here_. _But he tries. Oh, he tries.

And he goes on murmuring poetry to the dark until he starts believing in it.

Eventually, after a few days or weeks or an eternity of practice, his voice sounds sure.

…

_The tattoo ink glows subtly just after injection, making the boy's veins stand out in sharp relief against the newer, stranger patterns. _

_No blood beats there, not in this moment. No breath is moving through his lungs. Yet something else, some eldritch energy, still lingers. The tattoos are feeding it. Binding it. Keeping things in stasis for long enough to finish the task._

_They won't hold off time forever, though, not even here. The figures know they have to move quickly. _

_One of them has already clipped off the boy's hair and shaved his head while the others worked. Now, they're finishing the process of inking symbols over his skull. The marks here are intricate - letters, numbers, runes in long-dead languages. They look like poetry. Like a work of art._

_And then the lines vanish, invisible to any observer, but leaving their mark deep within him nonetheless._

_The violet-white glow lights his eyes from within for an instant before that quiets, too._

_It leaves behind the unmistakable idea that he's seen something, no matter whether he's conscious or alive by any measure - something close enough to real as to make no difference anymore._

…

When Cecil gets back to Night Vale High, things strike him as different immediately.

The school itself hasn't changed much. It's still embodying the same familiar mix of academic angst and existential terror. But something beneath the surface feels oddly orchestrated, as if everything has been laid out for him: _this is your school, Cecil. These are your tasks. This is what that must be completed before you can move on. _

The feeling is fleeting, almost like something's trying to block it, but it lends a peculiar frisson to that first day. He's left with the ongoing urge to peek behind doors and around corners, as if the illusion will crack if viewed at the right angle.

His old friends recognize him, at least, and begin to say hello, which makes it all feel more real. A few ask how he's feeling. Even fewer - really just Rika and Mel - ask how his internship went. He answers a little airily, mostly to cover up the fact that he has no idea what they're talking about.

(_THIS MIGHT HAPPEN, _his guardian had warned him, in a sequence of notes left with his breakfast plates that day. _JUST PLAY ALONG.) _

What distracts everyone from that problem isn't what he _does _say, but how he says it. People are definitely reacting differently to the voice. Girls he doesn't know - seniors, even - are suddenly paying attention, which is mostly just embarrassing. Earl can't tear his gaze away when Cecil speaks, which is also blush-inducing, although for slightly different reasons. Then there's the teachers, who are all finding excuses to call on him in class. They're acting as if hearing such an authoritative voice makes the answer that much more worthwhile. It's a little disconcerting.

Still, it's also got some advantages.

He's getting away with all _sorts _of nonsense without even trying. People believe what he say, gather to listen when he speaks up. He wins a debate in class for the first time, and sweet-talks his way out of cleaning the lab after a disastrous day in biology. Steve Carlsberg - his lab partner, _ecch _- gets stuck with it instead. (_Serves him right, _Cecil thinks scornfully. _If he'd been less clumsy with the scalpels, maybe that specimen would have _stayed _dead.)_

Even beyond that, though, the voice is opening up new opportunities entirely, none of which Cecil had expected at all.

"Have you ever thought of trying out for the musical?" his guidance counselor asks one afternoon. Cecil's eyebrows lift. They'd been discussing schedule changes - moving him into more advanced classes, mostly, thanks to suddenly glowing recommendations from his teachers - but they hadn't gotten around to the arts yet.

"I don't know if I'd ever thought of it," Cecil admits. "My b-"

The word stops without his conscious control, leaving him startled. What had he been about to say? Brother? _That's just nonsense_, he thinks, unsettled. Besides, the school only has one file under Palmer, and his counselor has it open on her desk. He focuses on that.

"Someone told me it was stupid," he finishes, blushing slightly.

"Oh, no, Not at all," she says. "You'd be a natural. You have just the right voice for it."

_Do I? _he thinks, still doubting. But really, the way everyone's been responding lately, maybe he _doe__s. _

Cecil sits up straighter. The counselor nods in satisfaction, then pulls out a sheaf of brochures. Smiling faces stare up at Cecil when she spreads them across her desk.

"It's not too early to be thinking about college, you know," she tells him. "Night Vale Community College has an excellent theater program. Or there's journalism. Broadcasting classes. You'd be perfectly suited for them."

The words spark off something in the back of his head. _Broadcasting… _He feels a haunting sense of familiarity. He also feels more focused._ The radio station. Maybe I could work there!_

Slowly he draws the papers toward him. His fingertips tingle when they touch the paper. "I…may have to think about that," he says slowly, his voice resonating even more than usual. It _is _a good voice, damn it. He can use that. "It's definitely an idea."

His counselor smiles widely at him.

For a strange moment, even though she's dressed in normal clothes that don't in any way resemble gauzy, obscuring shrouds, she reminds him of his guardian. She even reminds him a little of his mother. And she seems - in a way that makes him wistfully remember a life long lost - to be so very, very proud of him.

His heart squeezes and his throat constricts painfully. Still, he nods. If only to have deserved that smile, he knows for certain now that he's _going _to follow through.

The feeling of utter satisfaction he gets onstage a few weeks later - while _everyone's _listening to him, veritably spellbound - proves the worth of it all a thousandfold.

…

_The tattoos twine all across the boy's body now. They stretch up his arms, across his bared chest, crowning his head and reaching down to the back of his neck. The figures holding him in position swipe gloved fingertips across the marks, causing them to glow to life in bright curls. Then they subside again, invisible._

_One figure lies the boy down again. His head, unsupported, lolls to one side._

_Then two of them consider his torn jeans._

_There's more murmuring, more gestures. Finally, one of the figures - the one in the lightest shrouds - finishes undressing the boy with clinical efficiency. It takes a moment to consider the full picture, sketching out more patterns as if in rehearsal. Listening, as if there's a reply to the patterns made, a confirmation or a question, or some sort of guidance._

_Then this figure, maybe a woman, maybe nothing like a person at all, takes the needle and makes the most sensitive of the necessary marks._

_It moves in sinuous patterns down his lower body, all potential and promise._

_There might even be a tiny response - perhaps, in that moment, his lips part - although more likely, under the circumstances, that's just a trick of the darkness. _

…

Amongst all the other things that happen that year, there's one startling, sweet little detail: Cecil's first kiss, which happens almost by accident.

It's after class, in a jumbled corner of the gym where he and Earl Harlan are trying to sort out the badminton nets. They'd gotten snarled up by some unseen force mid-game. No one's found the racquets yet, or for that matter the players, but Cecil and Earl had both volunteered to help, and so now they're doing their best to clean up the aftermath.

Cecil's admittedly trying to work fast, since he's concerned about _whatever-it-was _coming to get them before they finish. Earl, though, has something else in mind.

"You know, Cecil," he's saying, while he stretches out a length of netting. "I've been meaning to talk to you ever since that play last week. Ever since you got back, really."

"Hmm?" Cecil replies, distracted. He doesn't notice the little intake of breath Earl makes at that sound.

"I just mean…we've been friends for a while. Acquaintances, at least. And it seemed only fair to tell you that I…well…"

He pauses. Cecil glances at him through the snarl of lines. Earl's wearing his scout uniform, as ever; he's a dedicated member, well on his way to the upper ranks, and the near-fervor can be a little unsettling sometimes. But he's always kind, helpful and relentlessly productive. He's gotten much further in his cleanup tasks than Cecil has so far, actually. A bit sheepishly, Cecil gets back to work, making Earl try again for his attention.

"I just thought," Earl says, before he blurts out, "I think we have a few things in common, is all. And I'd like to get to know you better."

"You mean…you want to hang out?"

"I guess so."

Cecil pulls at a worrying knot, and wonders if they'd be better off just dragging this mess out back, probably into a protective bloodstone circle, and setting it on fire. But he gives Earl another glance first. He's looking hopefully at Cecil through the net.

Through a large _hole_ in the net, actually.

"Oh," Cecil says haltingly. "That's-"

Earl blinks, confused, before he realizes what Cecil's pointing at. He swallows. Cecil, unaccountably, watches him do it: the tightness of Earl's throat, the way he bites his lower lip afterwards, the flush across his face. Cecil's own cheeks suddenly warm in response.

Funny how he's finally understanding what Earl's getting at, now that Earl's the one distracted by their task.

"What did this?" Earl breathes. The ragged edges of the net look…_damp_, like something had chewed its way through. Earl's obviously coming to the same conclusion. "According to the Manual" - and there's no mistaking the capital M - "there are four possible types of incorporeal beings who can leave such marks behind after an attack…."

"Earl," Cecil says, shaking his head. "Maybe we really should just throw these in the trash. And leave."

"But we should also find out what did this, just in case it comes back. We're _supposed _to be prepared. We're…"

Cecil puts down his net and steps up, facing Earl through the gap.

"Maybe we can talk about it later. Somewhere safer," Cecil suggests. Earl's eyes widen.

"You mean…after class?"

"Sure."

The topic, not to mention Earl's tone, shifts again by a few hopeful degrees. "You mean you _do _want to hang out?"

"I guess so," Cecil says, and smiles shyly.

He really has no idea - because no one's warned him yet, and he's been avoiding mirrors for months - what effect that smile has on people. It's so _open, _so honest, so utterly disarming. Put together with the voice, it's enough to stutter Earl to an absolute stop. He's still holding up the net, just barely. His hands are trembling.

"Cecil," he says raggedly. "I hope you understand - I mean, what I'm getting at is…"

Cecil tries to take a step forward, either to reassure or just to be closer. He doesn't know for certain, not really. But he catches one foot in the net, and stumbles forward. Earl, always prepared, reaches out to catch him. They're caught together in an instant, with the hole in the net settling over their heads, and the rest of it holding them together.

They both laugh nervously; they both turn their heads. Soon enough, either by accident or some inexplicable design, they're too close _not _to touch. Cecil might even be the first one to press forward. He's not sure if he intended this or if it was just _meant,_ but their lips meet then, in a fleeting but startlingly vivid kiss.

It answers more than a few questions, to be honest.

"Um," Cecil says when he withdraws, his whole body buzzing. "I-" is all Earl manages. The startled silence afterward is electric. Soon they both start extricating themselves from the nets, mostly out of a sudden, embarrassed need to do _anything_ other than stare at each other with that unexpected intensity.

Still, the tingling sweetness of it lingers.

And again - just in a whole new way this time - Cecil feels a little bit more awake, a little more present, and in some deep-down way, more _real. _

He wonders what might happen if they try that again.

"I…um. I have to go soon," he says, accidentally doing all sorts of interesting tonal things just then. Earl turns bright red. "But…"

"Tomorrow afternoon? If you still want…to…"

Cecil bundles up the net and nods, the motion hurried but decisive. "Yes," he says. Earl grins. "Yes. Tomorrow afternoon."

He turns to leave right after seeing Earl's reaction. There's almost too much about that expression to process. But when all's said and done, he turns back to wave goodbye after all - because he really can't help but mirror Earl's hopeful smile.

…

_The figures hum again as they move around their subject, studying the work so far, pondering what they've created._

_Truth is tangled with constructions; secrets weave with obfuscations. Some of what they signify is drawn from within. Some of it is meant as…direction. If their design holds true, the boy will never learn which is which._

_Their work is almost complete._

_One of the figures is silently collecting artifacts from the dying house, sorting the acceptable items into a single open crate. The boy's cassette recorder does not go into this box. It's held by the figure in gray, who keeps turning the device over in long-fingered hands. The plastic is chipped on one corner from the fall, but the player still functions. _

_To test that, in fact, the figure actually hits Play._

_The others all turn and stare at the sudden onrush of sound. _

_They clearly disapprove, but the gray figure holds on, listening to the dead boy's voice until the tape runs to an oddly accusatory silence. Then there's another gesture, another silent directive. The figure in gray has dictated one more symbol. _

_The others eventually, if grudgingly, agree. _

_The lone figure tucks the cassette player into the folds of its robes. The others don't see it happen - or if they do, they soon forget. This is by design as much as anything else here has been._

_And slowly, the figure's compatriots ink out the last few glowing lines._

…

Graduation comes sooner than it has any right to. It's heralded by jokes, in fact, about how broken time is in this town. Weren't they all juniors just yesterday?

But no: Cecil's class is already at the finish line, and the Night Vale High gym is filled by people celebrating their entry into adulthood. There are so many happy parents, friends, and siblings - making Cecil wistful in a way he barely understands. But then he's distracted by a pale hooded figure all alone in the stands, making a remarkably human wave.

From his seat in the center of the floor, he reaches up to wave back.

Then he braces himself for whatever's coming next. Commencement, after all, is just the very final test.

His class listens to the speeches together. Night Vale's valedictorian, a tall, thin girl with a cloud of dark hair escaping her mortarboard, speaks with quick nervousness of the challenges they've faced and what they've lost along the way. The In Memoriam list takes some time. But she also speaks of how many wonderful things await them, now that they've made it this far. It connects with Cecil on a deeper level than he's expecting. There's _hope _to what she says, despite the tension and the fear.

Cecil sits up straighter, again feeling a little more complete, a little bit more _here._

Then the mayor and the principal take the stage together.

The students all murmur nervously. They know what's coming. Cecil hears one muffled sob, and there are a few whispered prayers. Across the aisle, one of the football players punches one fist repeatedly into the opposite hand, while he mutters to himself to gear up. Cecil just holds his breath, reminding himself he's prepared for this. He has to be.

_I know what I want. I know what I'm capable of. I know it…_

The room dims, cutting off his thoughts. Only the aisle down the middle of the room stands illuminated and clear. Cecil peers down its path toward the principal, who's holding the first of the students' diplomas, and the mayor beside him, who's calmly drumming his fingers against each other. He says a few words in an eerily echoing voice. Then he calls the first name.

One by one, Cecil's classmates stand up to run the gauntlet.

_Here you will face your fears, _the mayor had said. _Here you will meet the evidence of all that you have done. Your accomplishments. Your failures. Your potential, met or missed…. _

The first student - poor Abigail Abernathy, always the first to face whatever Night Vale High might throw at her - starts up the aisle. It isn't long before she begins to struggle. She's over-lit and overexposed, beating back memories and unseen ghosts. Or worse.

Cecil's fingers clutch the edges of his chair.

_Your diploma will prove what you've accomplished. What you've decided to be as you go out to face the world. But it's up to you to come and claim it._

"Come on, Abby," he murmurs. Her head jerks up like she's heard him. "You can make it."

After a few more difficult steps, she does. When she takes the stage, she lets out a sharp cry of relief and gratitude. Cecil almost smiles. His friend waves back.

Then the next name is called.

Most of his classmates succeed, just like Abby does. Manuel shouts in triumph when he gets to the podium. Earl takes the stairs with easy confidence, but Cecil expected nothing less. Some students look exhausted; others make an easy sprint, taking up their diplomas with excitement. And one or two…

Well.

As always, not everyone makes it up the aisle.

Cecil's immediate alphabetical predecessor stumbles halfway there, and she doesn't hear it when everyone tries to encourage her onward. The shriek of her unseen specters is still rattling in the rafters when Cecil gets to his feet. He doesn't want to watch, but can't help but at least _glance, _as Melanie's pulled away, still swiping at the doubts and fears clouding invisibly around her.

The principal sets Mel's diploma aside on a tiny, shadowed table. It won't be taken up again.

The next diploma that _is _selected is Cecil's own.

He tries his best to breathe, even though it hurts again. His throat's so sore, so constricted and tight, and he can't even make himself swallow. It's just like it was when…

"Cecil Palmer," he hears, through a flicker of unexpected static. The world lurches sideways, and all of his thoughts scatter.

He has to take the first step. Bracing himself, he starts walking forward.

The long march to the podium doesn't stay silent for long.

_Cecil, _someone whispers, in a voice he hasn't heard for years. _Beware. Be warned. Be wary-_

Something sidles past him, a shapeless form that dissolves into the light before he can tell what it is. He clenches his fists and takes another step.

_You don't have what it takes, _says another voice as he keeps walking. It's male. Disturbingly familiar, in a way that jolts him - especially since it's barely human, and mostly howl. _There's no way _you're _good enough. _

Blank eyes stare out from the haze around him. Cecil nearly trips.

_You had such promise, _says a grating, high-pitched voice. _Why did you fall? _

Cecil struggles to beat back the accusations. His own doubts are starting to make that harder. That voice…it had been an old mentor, he thinks, although he can't place it for certain. That's his _real _biggest worry, and it has been for months: why can't he remember so many of these people? Why will his guardian never explain?

Thinking about it summons the _real _monster. He's suddenly in the dark, the gymnasium gone, the spotlight dimmed. Cecil gulps. The only light to be seen is a single, pale spark at the end of the corridor.

And he's seeing it reflected in dozens of mirrors lining the aisle.

It's the worst possible thing Cecil could have been asked to face. He's avoided mirrors ever since - ever since…

_I can't be here, _he thinks, struggling to breathe. Memories he still can't quite define are screaming at him from the shadows. _They're not covered. They have to be covered. I can't be here!_

He turns, his steps stuttering, to find that in a very real sense, he _isn't _here at all. The mirrors are showing images, all right - but his face isn't anywhere to be found.

These aren't reflections, exactly. The gallery all around him is showing moments of his high school life, year by year - but he's in none of them. _It's your life without you, _says another voice. _Because you were gone. _

_But I-_

His throat flares with terrible pain, as if someone's choking the breath out of him. Cecil gasps.

_You're _gone_, Cecil, _someone mocks him. The voice eerily resembles his own. _You know it. None of this is real_.

He pushes past the disbelief and choking terror. Shadows follow him, swirling past the panes of glass, where Cecil's figure in the memories is getting replaced with someone else. It's Steve getting all the attention in class (_Steve!), _Aurora earning that award in Sumerian, Stefan starring in the musical, Lewis kissing Earl in the gym. It's all so _wrong. _

Yet there's a nagging certainty that somewhere else, it happened. All of this happened. All of this might be the truth - and he doesn't belong in any of it.

_What are you trying to do, Cecil? _whispers his own voice again. _Defy death? _

Stubbornness suddenly flares in him. _Yes. _

Cecil looks at his missing image in the nearest mirror, shouts at it, _screams, _throws something he knows he hadn't been holding a moment before - it looks like a small box, maybe even a tape recorder - and listens to the mirror explode into shards.

Then he turns from the empty frame. And he starts to run.

…

_Tension crackles in the air, bright and electric._

_The figure holding the tattoo needle draws back, interrupted by a flare of energy from two of the symbols already inscribed. The violet light flashes, subsides, appears again. It's flickering from mark to mark and throwing illumination onto the boy's lifeless face._

_It's happening far sooner than they'd planned._

_The figures all hasten into movement, gesticulating to each other. Only the figure in gray is still. When she casts her hands out at last, cutting through the silent cacophony, the others draw back. The figure in gray stands at the boy's head, then kneels, looking down at him in reverse. _

_His vanished voice is still echoing in the air, with undercurrents now of the voice he _should _have, the man he might yet be…_

…_if he can find his way through this. _

_The figure touches two fingers to the mark on his forehead, drawing all focus to that point. She concentrates fiercely, as if silently calling to him._

_And she watches._

_And waits._

…

Somewhere beyond the howling mirrors, Cecil's life still waits for him.

He keeps telling himself this, in any case. It's the only thing keeping his feet moving. Common sense says that this corridor can't possibly go on much longer, and that he'll get to the end, just like the others (_except for Mel…) _if he tries.

But something else, something terribly specific, is happening to him here. He doesn't even want to know what it is. He just wants _out._

"Get _off _me," he shouts, swiping at shadows. The nearest mirror hisses at him, its tendrils withdrawing. Another, as if responding to his voice, turns a pale silver. Cecil knows he shouldn't stop to look, but he turns, and he sees -

- _himself, naked and alone, so cold and broken on the floor - _

Cecil recoils in horror, only to find that the corridor he'd been following has changed. It's no longer a straight line. The mirrors have angled themselves into a circle, and they're surrounding him now. Fear chokes the last breath out of him, and he spins in place, disoriented, watching a cascade of possibilities flicker across the glass.

"Where…?" he whispers, his voice broken again. The reply comes from an oddly familiar voice.

_There is a road out. You have to find it. You have to choose. _

His heart hammers. He's short of oxygen and on the verge of panic. His throat hurts horribly. _Everything _hurts. And there's a dozen versions of himself laid out in the glass, but they're threatening to wink out of existence again before he can even reach them. He has no time. _What's the right choice?_

_You know what's true. You know what you need. Find it, Cecil. _

He turns toward that disembodied voice to see…almost nothing. But he _hears _static, and music, and something more - and he suddenly _understands_. Sound is all he's got left to count on. But it might just be enough -

- because he's listening to a voice across the airwaves, warm and confident and comforting, speaking of home. And it's unmistakably his own.

He staggers forward a step, toward something glimmering violet in the glass. It looks strangely like an eye. But it's shading into something darker - or perhaps his vision's just failing, drilling everything down to a single point. He's not sure if it even matters which is true. That tiny, remaining light is red, rhythmic, blinking like the light atop the radio tower.

He _knows _it.

His fingers touch the glass.

All at once, reality splits around him.

Light pours in from all directions. He can hear _everything, _see the whole town spread out around him. Something immense thrums up through the floor and into his ears, and he feels himself speak, saying something he can't even understand. It's just a tone, rich and full and reaching everyone within earshot, powerful and all-consuming and _his…. _

And in reply, there's a roaring sound everywhere, fierce and fervent, and briefly terrifying until he realizes what it is.

It's _applause. _

Cecil blinks hard, coming back to himself with an almost painful jolt. He breathes in hard, almost like it's the first true breath he's ever taken, and his whole body tingles and aches with it. There's so much potential here, so much _life._

And sure enough, he's back in the gym, standing on the stage between the high school's principal (who really _does _look gorgon-like up close) and the mayor (who beggars any attempt at description, especially by this light). His left hand is clenched around his diploma.

He stares at it for a few shocked seconds. He's made it.

He's _home. _

Cheering loudly - he can't really help it - Cecil thrusts his scrolled diploma up into the air in an unabashed victory pose. From the volume of the response, it sounds like the whole town is cheering him on.

Everyone but his silent guardian, in any case. She's vanished from the stands in a puff of insubstantial void.

Cecil, caught up in the moment, doesn't notice her go.

And for reasons that he'll never be told, he never thinks of her again.

…

_The eye on the boy's forehead - _Cecil's _forehead - glows with tremendous light in the moment it happens: a sudden, almost violent intake of breath. When he jolts back to life, his muscles all go tense, his human eyes squeeze tightly shut, and his whole body bows, infused with so much energy that he almost can't contain it. _

_The figures all draw back. The one in gray stays the closest, in one last moment of defiance. _

_When Cecil falls back to the floor, he blinks up once, wide-eyed and shocked. Then, after whispering something that sounds like a line from a poem, something learned long ago - or moments before - to stave off the darkest hours, he closes his eyes again. He breathes in deeply, and with an ease that seems to surprise him. That makes relief simply take him over. He relaxes, and slides into what's finally a natural sort of sleep. _

_The third eye drawn upon his forehead is the last one to close. _

_The gray figure watches it happen. Whether that violet-tinged mark remains visible to observers or not, he'll be able to see further, hear more, than anyone else in this town. However much he remembers and understands, though…_

_Well, that's going to be up to him from now on._

_The figure in gray might be said to sigh a little, if these figures ever do such a thing as sigh. Then she turns to the crate of Cecil's approved possessions. She withdraws the recorder and its tapes from her robes, and very carefully, very quietly, tucks them into the crate. They're now hidden beneath his clothes and the painstakingly modified yearbook, and underneath an old toy, one of the few they've allowed him to keep, given to him by his mother years before. _

_The figure touches it, just once, then withdraws._

_Someday he might find the tapes. Perhaps he never will. Either way, they'll decide what to do whenever that time comes - and as broken as time is here, he'll have a good long life before that happens._

_His erstwhile guardian hopes, in an uncharacteristically human moment, that he'll go and live it well._

_Then she turns away._

_And unfortunately for them all, she begins to forget him, too._

…

Summer goes by in a misremembered haze, like the desert sun has burned away all evidence. There's just the idea of time passing, and then things shift, until the radio and the evening chill both start speaking of fall.

It's on one of those crisp days that Cecil finds himself on the steps of his new college, ready for another fresh start.

He runs one hand back through his short-cropped hair. It's finally growing back in after that summer's disastrous haircut, at least. (_Never trust barbers, _he thinks, with a residual shudder.) He also bounces a little on the balls of his feet, knowing that the excitement's probably a little childish - he's an _adult _now, he knows that, or at least he's close enough as makes no difference - but just this once, he lets it pass. The moment deserves a little excitement. There's so much possibility awaiting him here. So many plans and dreams to fulfill.

He feels certain he'll find his voice here, and he can't wait to get started.

So there at the threshold, Cecil squares his shoulders, catches his breath, and with a bright, brilliant spark in his eye, he sets off into his new life.

If that spark is just a little more violet than humanly possible, no one truly sees it but the shadows and the sky.


End file.
